Internet-Draft TODO - Abbreviation March 2023
Ihlar & Westerlund Expires 14 September 2023 [Page]
Workgroup:
Masque Working Group
Internet-Draft:
draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers-01
Published:
Intended Status:
Standards Track
Expires:
Authors:
M. Ihlar
Ericsson AB
M. Westerlund
Ericsson

A Sequence Number Extension for HTTP Datagrams

Abstract

This document defines a sequence number extension to HTTP datagrams used to carry proxied UDP payload or IP datagrams. This extension is useful when HTTP datagrams are transported on top of a multipath protocol that does not ensure in-order delivery as it allows a masque endpoint to implement reordering logic specific to its needs.

About This Document

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers/.

Discussion of this document takes place on the WG Working Group mailing list (mailto:masque@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/masque/. Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/masque/.

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/ihlar/draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on 14 September 2023.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This document defines a sequence number extension to HTTP datagrams [RFC9297]. Sequence numbers at the HTTP datagram layer allows a receiving endpoint to implement arbitrary reordering logic, which can be useful when proxied datagrams are sent over multiple paths simultaneously, such as when using the multipath QUIC extension [MPQUIC]. The extension applies to HTTP datagrams when they are used with the extended CONNECT method and the protocols are either connect-ip [CONNECT-IP] or connect-udp [RFC9298].

2. Conventions and Definitions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

3. Sequence Number Datagram Extension

The Sequence Number datagram extension prepends sequence numbers to HTTP datagrams. Datagram sequence numbers are unsigned integers initiated to 0 and are incremented by 1 for every transmitted HTTP datagram, except for when the integer overflows and is reset to 0. The extension can be used with the HTTP CONNECT method when the :protocol pseudo header is equal to "connect-udp" or "connect-ip". Use of the sequence number extension is determined per request, and the scope of a datagram sequence is limited to a single request stream. Datagrams with different quarter stream IDs have distinct sequence number spaces.

3.1. Registration

Endpoints indicate support for Sequence Number Datagram type by including the boolean-valued Item Structured Field "DG-Sequence: ?1" in the HTTP Request and Response headers (See Section 3.3.6 of [RFC8941] for information about the boolean format.).

A datagram sequence is registered by sending a REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsule. An endpoint MAY send multiple REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsules in order to support multiple payload formats.

REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT Capsule {
  Type (i) = REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT,
  Length (i),
  Context ID (i),
  Payload Context ID (i),
  [Representation (8)]
}

The capsule has the following fields:

Context ID: Identifies a sequence number context. The value MUST be unique within the scope of a request stream.

Payload Context ID: Identifies the type of payload that follows a sequence number. The value MUST be equal to a previously registered Context ID.

Representation: The size in bits of the unsigned interger used to encode the sequence number, the value MUST be one of the following: 8, 16, 32 or 64. This field MUST be present in the first REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsule sent on a request stream and it MAY be omitted in subsequent capsules.

3.2. Datagram Format

A Sequence Number Datagram has the following format:

Sequence Number Datagram {
  Context ID (i),
  Sequence Number (8..64),
  Payload (..)
}

Context ID: This value indicates that the datagram contains a sequence number and the format of the data that follows the sequence number.

Sequence Number: Unsigned integer of size specified in registration, indicates the transmission order of the datagagram.

Payload: Datagram payload.

4. Security Considerations

Although the usage of the sequence number is not defined by this specification, there is an underlying assumption that the sequence numbers are assigned in transmission order of HTTP datagram sent in the context of this HTTP request. Any attacker that can break that assumption will thus impact any node that uses the sequence number. By altering the sequence number in HTTP datagrams, an attacker can impact how much data a receiver is buffering for the following purposes:

A malicious endpoint is more likely to mount a resource exhaustion attack, while HTTP intermediares could be used by an third party attacker to impact the HTTP datagram flow between a source and a destination.

A user that buffers datagrams based on sequence numbers should ensure that they have protection against resource exhaustion attacks by limiting the size of their buffers.

5. IANA Considerations

5.1. Capsule types

This document adds following entries to the "HTTP Capsule Types" registry:

Table 1
Capsule Type Value Specification
REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT TBD (This document)

5.2. HTTP headers

This document adds following entry to the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Field Name Registry":

Table 2
Field Name Template Status Reference Comments
DG-Sequence   permanent (This document)  

6. References

6.1. Normative References

[CONNECT-IP]
Pauly, T., Schinazi, D., Chernyakhovsky, A., Kühlewind, M., and M. Westerlund, "Proxying IP in HTTP", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-masque-connect-ip-08, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-masque-connect-ip-08>.
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
[RFC8941]
Nottingham, M. and P-H. Kamp, "Structured Field Values for HTTP", RFC 8941, DOI 10.17487/RFC8941, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8941>.
[RFC9297]
Schinazi, D. and L. Pardue, "HTTP Datagrams and the Capsule Protocol", RFC 9297, DOI 10.17487/RFC9297, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9297>.
[RFC9298]
Schinazi, D., "Proxying UDP in HTTP", RFC 9298, DOI 10.17487/RFC9298, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9298>.

6.2. Informative References

[MPQUIC]
Liu, Y., Ma, Y., De Coninck, Q., Bonaventure, O., Huitema, C., and M. Kühlewind, "Multipath Extension for QUIC", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-quic-multipath-03, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-multipath-03>.

Acknowledgments

TODO acknowledge.

Authors' Addresses

Marcus Ihlar
Ericsson AB
Magnus Westerlund
Ericsson